The first of two clashes between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are about 24 hours away. Ahead of the big Match for Africa exhibition, Roger Federer spoke to Blick upon arriving m Dubai at the Zurich airport on Sunday. Video interview below.

Federer talks about the showdown on Tuesday in Zurich which will support children in Africa. Federer’s mom, Lynette, is from South Africa, and Federer calls that country his second home. He says the match will raise funds and raise awareness for those in need on the vast African continent.

On his Facebook page last night Federer wrote, “I am really excited about the match on Tuesday and playing Rafa in
front of my ‘home’ crowd. Should be a fun couple of days in Zurich. Time to go to bed! Ciao.”

He had earlier said, “Back home in Switzerland. Certainly a lot colder than it was in Dubai.”

On Wednesday, Federer and Nadal play their second exhibition in Madrid which benefits Nadal’s charity.

Being that they are friendly charity exos, I wouldn’t be surprised if Federer won in Zurich and Nadal in Madrid. I don’t think one player will sweep both matches. That wouldn’t be sporting, would it?

Further translations are appreciated.

The match is scheduled to begin 8:20pm local time in Zurich tomorrow. ESPN2 has it on tape delay in the U.S.

R.F. talks about his 2nd home country South Africa, where his foundation has many projects to help children.
There will be more than a friendly tennis game, they organized music and some entertainement and, as says RF, hopefully a great tennis match. All places in the stadium were sold immediatly (The Hallenstadium has more than 13000 places, but I don’t know how many places are used for this game). He is happy for the big interest in this game and in his foundation.
RF wants to show Zurich and parts of Switzerland to Rafa, before going to Madrid.
RF is happy about the friendship he has with Rafa and that these 2 matches are possible for the 2 foundations of the 2 players.

Way to go Fed! I guess you can have a family and kids, carry your own stuff, show you main rival in your era your “hood” but be somehow soooooo arrogant (sarcasim) at the same time…..just saying its so ridiculous… haters go away…fans unite :)

In his autobiography McEnroe said the way it works with exhibitions if it’s best of 3 is that they play the first set straight up, then whoever wins basically tanks the second. Then they’re free to play the 3rd straight up. That way, there’s some genuine competition, the crowd gets 3 sets and the players get paid.

Now, this is a charity event and there’s 2 of them, so who knows what’s happening out there. The last exho I followed were Sampras and Federer playing all those matches in Asia in 2007. I think they played 4, and Federer won 3 of them, but Sampras won the last one. I don’t know if Federer “tanked”, but I’m sure he wasn’t tight as a drum for that one. Having said that, the MSG exho seemed straight up all the way to me, as Federer appeared to get quite nervous in the 3rd.

I wonder if there are any undercards in these matches – would have been nice to see the Belgians play each other, for example, right before the match. And that french connection of European senior players always seems to be up for a match.

on fed’s facebook page there is a great photo of roger and rafa flying from zurich to madrid for the next exhibition – i think it’s such incredible sportsmanship that they can spend this sort of time together. if anything, i think the way the media has tried to make them enemies has given them common ground on which to bond.

thark – I don’t think the media have tried to make them enemies as much as the tennis blogosphere has – when I first started posting I was shocked at the extent to which some seemed to really detest Federer – I mean hate him! At first it seemed like a lot of Sampras and Roddick fans who just resented the hell out of him for obvious reasons. But over the last 3 years, as Nadal has ascended, it seems the lines have been drawn between their fans.

But I don’t hear/see any of this in the mainstream media – all you hear about is how good of friends they are, and how their families love each other, and they plan vacations together, etc…okay, that’s a stretch, but you get the point.

But here in the blogosphere – you almost can’t say anything nice about either of them with eliciting a war of words. I think this one is on us.

a good point, MMT – probably a need to polarize things on the part of the fans, in order to make taking sides more meaningful (because somehow this helps people to have a stronger sense of identity relating to the side they choose). anyway – would be great if other athletes managed to have this type of positive rivalry.